MarvinTsai: 1. Topalov wins almost all the games in the first round.
2. The only one player Topalov drew 2 games with is Anand.
3. In chessgames database Topalov has nearly even score with most of the participants, except Anand.

percyblakeney: <MarvinTsai> If rapid games are removed Topalov even has a plus score against Anand. Regarding San Luis, a few years back it was often claimed that Topalov's successes in 2005 were caused by inferior cheating controls. For example Bareev said that he knew that Topalov had been cheating systematically for years, and others implied the same thing.

But over the last year and a half Topalov has been performing better than he did in 2005. If he was cheating back then he should somehow be cheating even better now in spite of all the improved controls. His Elo performance has been close to 2850 for well over a year, comparable to Kasparov at his peak in that respect.

It is impossible to prove that someone (regardless if it is Topalov or Kurnosov or anyone else) has not been cheating at this or that occasion in the past. But if someone relies on systematical cheating to improve, it must be very hard to improve even more when cheating is made impossible.

MarvinTsai: First of all I would like to say cheating is still possible. Just recently computers become stronger than human and we are still learning how to cheat and how to detect. Cheating is like magic, after you know the trick, it's nothing, but before that, you are just stunned by the performance. I think sooner or later matches will be held in a electromagnetic-isolated room and the broadcast will be delay for 1 or 2 moves. To me it's like using high speed camera to judge a tennis game.

Secondly, yeah, I guess it's quite difficult to analyze games statistically to find the implication. If I want to cheat all the way to the top, I will do 3 things:

1. Find or even research a communication device that is so..... magic(like you see in a movie)

2. Find a reliable computer that whacks nearly every GM on ICC(but no one ever notice that)

3. Randomly use them. Only need a dice to do that. The point is, NEVER try to cheat for a specific move or a specific game or even a specific tournament.

But you can see that the problem for the cheater is: it's much more efficient and convenient to cheat at some significant moves and games. So, if someone cheat, the only chance for the chess detective is look at the killer moves. Of course the cheater knows that too, but if someone is greedy and succeeds once, he will only get greedier.

However, I don't know if anyone cheat. All I can say is: this is a perfect performance from Topalov. If you want, you may find many subtle "hints" like he loves bishops, he inclines to attack, he is a fine example of Sofia rule, he plays classical game control better than rapid and blitz, he has been able to get even stronger in his early thirties since he got GM norm at 17... but none of above is decisive. In 2009, between Anand's win and Topalov's next great success, everyone can believe what he wants to believe.

HeMateMe: Just realized, looking over the old list of champions, how they got there, that Topalov never actually won a match to be champion. He won a sort of Candidates tournament, kind of like when Alekhine died and they held a tournament in 1948 to crown a new chess champion. This might be Topalov's last chance, the match coming up with Anand. Magnus Carlsen seems to be gaining steam.

In 1928 and early 1929 Efim Bogoljubov and Max Euwe played two matches in Netherland. The first match was played in Amsterodam, Hague and Scheveningen and shortly before its beginning FIDE announced a bit surprisingly in a letter sent to both players that the winner of their match would become Champion of the FIDE. This decision of FIDE was mainly based on and backed by the fact that Max Euwe won Amateur world championship tournament in Hague 1928. The match got a nationwide attention in Netherland and Bogoljubov won it with score 5,5:4,5 (+3-2=5). The success of the first match was so great that one rich chess enthusiast decided to finance a match-revenge, that was held in several cities of Netherland in the end of 1928 and the beginning of 1929. Bogoljubov won this match with the same score as the first one 5,5:4,5 (+2-1=7).

FIDE’s fifth Congress awarded him the title “Champion of FIDE”

In short, the General Assembly approved the Central Committee’s decision to adopt the Bogoljubow v Euwe contest as the first match for the title of FIDE champion

jbtigerwolf: I have an idea for the World Chess Championship. It breaks with tradition. Chess is not boxing; that sport has the same type of system as chess, because it is too difficult to stage a boxing world championship from scratch every so often, given the nature of the contest.

Chess should be run more along the lines of golf. Not a knock-out tournament like tennis, but every player still goes into the competition from the early rounds to the final.

Okay, here it is... drum roll...
My Idea For The World Chess Championship:

Have 3 groups of 8 players, the best rated 24 in the world. They should be invited 3 months in advance. Each group should contain players thus:

Format:
Each group has 14 rounds, with every player playing the others twice, once with each colour.
After all 3 groups are completed, the highest group winner gains a spot in the Final.
The other two group winners play off in a Semi Final match of 8 games. If it is tied, then the highest rated player goes to the Final match of 12 games.

i.e. player 1 wins group A with 11.5/14 and player 2 wins group B with 9/14 and player 4 wins group C with 10/14.

Player 1 (highest rated player in World, if it is not already obvious) got the most points. He was in the easiest group, but that's his reward for being top-rated. He's in the Final.

Player 4 scored more than player 2, but if their Semi Final is tied, then player 2 goes to the Final, again, that's his reward for being higher rated.

If there is a tie for 1st place in any group,then the higher rated player goes through.

All this 'ratings decide the tie-breaks' may seem unfair, but it is to avoid short games deciding what is really the standard game Chess Championship of The World. It is in the spirit of Championships past when, if there was a tie, the incumbent champion stayed Champ.

All the games in the group stage should be played, to both help with ratings and to decide the waiting Finalist / Semi Finalists. Prize money should be hefty, to discourage truancy and 2nds, 3rds, 4ths in each group should get large amounts to encourage struggling players to play harder even if they cannot finish on top.

For the Semi and the Final, once a match is determined (a score of 4.5 or 6.5 respectively) the match is over. This makes sense.

shivasuri4: 4 years,<kinghunt>?It's been 3 years and 1.5 months or so now.Not really Anand's fault all the time.You can't schedule two world championship matches so close together and expect him to win 'practice'
tourneys before the matches.Besides,I think Kasparov retired in 2005,not 2008.So I would place Anand slightly ahead of the other two.

Kinghunt: I would actually tend to agree with you that of the three of them, Anand is the strongest. I was just pointing out that match scores are not the whole story, because while his record is the best in post-2005 match play, his tournament record is absolutely atrocious. My mistake, it's "only" been more than three years since Anand won a tournament. He's entered plenty, just without success. Past world champions have managed to win plenty of tournaments even while preparing for matches. In the five year period from 1985-1990, Kasparov played four title matches and yet managed to win 10 (consecutive!) tournaments. Karpov did likewise. Kramnik wasn't a particularly active champion, but he did manage to win about half of the tournaments he entered in. Here is a list of Anand's tournaments from the past 3.5 years:

So on the bright side, Anand is now getting more second place finishes and fewer 4-5 place or even outright last finishes. On the other hand, he's gone 8 consecutive tournaments without a win, and for half of them, he wasn't even on the podium. Has a reigning world champion ever had such a streak of poor tournament results before?

shivasuri4: <Kinghunt>,you shouldn't bring Kasparov into the equation here.He's obviously at a different plane from the trio we are talking of.You should also note that he's been upstaged by players who have been in really strong form.For example,his Corus score this year would have given him at least shared first in some of the previous tourneys but Nakamura beat him to the post.The last two years have largely been all about Carlsen.

Unfortunately,Anand has been the champion at a time when a series of players have relatively overperformed in tourneys.Precious little that Anand can do about it.The only place I would blame him would be at Bilbao last year when he didn't do enough to try and win the tourney,although one could say Kramnik was in really good form then.I disagree with you when you say that he's been having poor results.Anand's just having a series of modest results,the only poor one being the Bilbao 2008 tourney.

Chessinfinite: <I would call(Anand, Topalov, Kramnik) all three equals after Legendry Kasaparov's retirement>

Nonsense, Anand > Kramnik or Topalov, as he proved in match play. Though Topalov is closer to Anand in strength than Kramnik . Funny thing is Topalov of 2005-2010 was incredibly strong, in the league of Anand , and even higher than Anand on occasions, but in match play- Anand simply has better understanding of chess overall taken over longer duration results as is also shown in their match.

Get your thoughts straight, if winning a hard fought match meant nothing, then it would not make sense to play chess at all.

Get this - Post 2007, after Anand became World champion, Anand's score against Kramnik = +4, Anand's score against Topalov = +3. Try calling that equal.

What is it with these <Indianxxxxxx> handles that enjoy making themselves look funny ?

Petrosianic: After Kasparov's retirement, Anand and Kramnik both became undisputec champion, while Topalov didn't, and lost his matches to both of the other two, so Topalov will always finish 3rd when ranking those three. But he may score high on lists of greatest players to never be world champion.

Markov47: <Though Topalov is closer to Anand in strength than Kramnik.> Nonsense. As Petrosianic said, Topalov lost to Kramnik in their match, also Kramnik is a former WC, while Topalov never was one. Kramnik defeated Kasparov to become WC, while Topalov...

Absentee: Closer in strength to whom, WHEN? In 2005-2006 Topalov was by all evidence stronger than both. He was first at Linares 2005 (ahead of Anand), Mtel Masters 2005 (ahead of Anand and Kramnik) and 2006 (ahead of Anand) and Corus A 2006 (tied with Anand).

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